I See through Everything

Chapter 113: Chapter 92: Muddying the Waters

Lucia was in the midst of its warmest season.

Yet a bloody storm had suddenly erupted from within.

In a small grove on the quiet outskirts of Galilin, near the border.

HUFF... HUFF... The sound of labored breathing, like a bellows, grew more and more rapid.

WOOF WOOF WOOF...

Hearing the scattered barks behind him, the figure’s ragged breathing grew heavier. He clutched a bleeding wound on his arm:

’Damn it, how did my cover get blown? I can’t go on like this. The border is still four or five kilometers away. I have to keep going...’

WOOF WOOF WOOF...

The barking behind him grew closer, and beads of sweat dripped from his forehead. He was about to pull out a grenade to set a simple trap.

Suddenly, he heard a faint whirring sound from above.

’Damn it! A drone!’ A look of despair crossed the man’s face.

"Suspected target spotted in Sector 36."

"Squad Five, Squad Six, flank him from both sides. If the suspect resists, aim for his limbs. The higher-ups want him taken alive..."

"Roger..."

"Move out..."

Jumbled, low-pitched words in the Lucian tongue echoed through the surrounding woods.

Although he couldn’t make out the words clearly, the man was already in despair. The thermal imaging surveillance drone overhead was locked firmly onto his position.

The hand holding the grenade moved to pull the pin several times, but he was clearly not a Death Warrior who looked at death as a release. He was just a corrupt rat, rotten with greed.

In truth, if he had wanted to commit suicide, he’d had plenty of opportunities to eat a bullet already. He never would have tried to escape in the first place.

After a moment, soft rustling sounds came from the bushes in all directions, along with increasingly ferocious barking.

Fearing they would mistake his intentions for resistance, he could only shout, "I surrender... Don’t shoot..."

"Drop your weapon! Hands on your head!"

Soon, five or six blinding flashlight beams converged on him.

In the light, a curly-haired, bearded Slavic man trembled, his hands on his head and blood dripping from his arm. At his feet lay a pistol and two grenades. "Don’t shoot..."

"Go. Be careful."

"Yes, sir."

Two agents quickly approached from behind.

One cuffed the target.

The other carefully inspected the pistol and grenades on the ground, making sure he hadn’t set a trap.

"Boss, it’s clear."

"Take him away."

"Huff... huff... Can you stop the bleeding...? I feel so dizzy..." After surrendering, the adrenaline coursing through the target’s body rapidly faded, making him suddenly aware of the pain and weakness.

The agent captain glanced at him, ripped open the shirt around the wound to inspect it, then said with a cold smile, "Don’t worry, Mr. Antonio. This wound won’t kill you. We’ll stop the bleeding soon enough."

"...Huff... huff..." Antonio could only respond with ragged breaths.

Like a dead dog, Antonio was hauled between two agents to a road near the grove.

Then he was shoved into an SUV.

After half an hour of twisting and turning, they finally arrived at a hidden villa in the suburbs.

During the half-hour drive, an agent had already stopped the bleeding in Antonio’s arm to prevent him from kicking the bucket from blood loss.

After being brought into the villa’s basement, Antonio saw his supermodel lover in the adjacent cell. She looked even more miserable than he did.

The dozen or so cells in the basement were filled to capacity, each holding five or six people.

"Heh, I didn’t expect you to get caught too, Antonio..." A man with a face swollen like a pig’s head, sharing the same cell, looked at him weakly.

Antonio stared at the man’s severely swollen, bruised face. He didn’t recognize him until he saw the tattoo on his wrist. "Nikolai Ivanov? How did you end up in here too?"

"Heh, these hounds got intel from god-knows-where and raided my office directly."

"But aren’t you connected with..."

"Heh, why do you think I didn’t get a warning?" Nikolai Ivanov asked back weakly with a bitter smile.

"Uh..." Antonio had clearly come to his senses. The network they had painstakingly built over decades had likely been wiped out, from top to bottom.

Antonio found this outcome hard to accept, but he was no longer in the mood to worry about any network. All he could do was hope these hounds would spare his life.

Another young man with slicked-back hair, huddled in a corner, hugged his knees in terror, curled up like an over-stressed snail that had retreated into its shell.

Suddenly, the iron door opened again.

"Aleksey Ivanov Ukovsky, you’re coming with me!"

"No... I don’t know anything..." the young man in the corner screamed in terror.

In an instant, the young man was yanked up by his collar.

The next second—

SMACK!

A resounding slap struck Aleksey Ivanov Ukovsky across the face, making him see stars and his ears ring.

In an instant, Aleksey’s face turned red and swollen.

Antonio finally understood why Nikolai’s face was a swollen, miserable mess.

The agent patted Aleksey’s cheek with a grin and said nonchalantly, "You don’t know anything, huh? Fine. Firing squad tomorrow."